The Desecration of Jewish Cemeteries: Serious, But Not New

Over the past few months, there have been at least three incidents of vandalism of Jewish burial grounds in the U.S.; these have coincided with the series of bomb threats (all hoaxes) against Jewish communal institutions. Senator Bernie Sanders, Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League, and New York City’s Mayor Bill de Blasio, along with countless journalists, have placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of Donald Trump. But the truth is that anti-Semites have a long history of striking at dead Jews, especially when live Jews are unavailable or sufficiently protected. Seth Mandel comments:

Nowhere is [the prevalence of this form of vandalism] illustrated more clearly than at Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives cemetery. Constructed 3,000 years ago, it contains tens of thousands of burial plots, including those for great rabbis and Jewish figures over the centuries. When Jordan took control of that area of Jerusalem during Israel’s War of Independence, it commenced desecrating every Jewish holy site it could find, very much including the Mount of Olives cemetery, using the stones for construction. Israel won the territory back in 1967, but the cemetery has consistently been the target of vandalism up to the present day. New security measures seem finally to be working; in late February the Forward reported that the cemetery was “free of vandalism for the first time in decades.”

All of which makes what’s happening now in the United States so disturbing, for two reasons. First, it’s not new. Second, it’s being treated as if it is. . . .

In [2008], Jewish graves in France, Hungary, Latvia, and Greece were hit. In 2011, cemeteries in New Jersey and Kosovo were hit. In 2012, Jewish cemeteries in France, Germany, Austria, Ukraine, Hungary, Poland, Canada, and New Zealand were vandalized, as well as the graves of Jewish war veterans in Florida. In 2013, it was Arizona’s turn. In 2014, Wisconsin and Massachusetts saw vandalism at Jewish graves, as did Hungary, Greece, England, and Norway. And these are just the ones that make the news. But . . . many don’t.

Attacks of this sort didn’t start in 2015, when Donald Trump decided to run for president. . . . Candidate Trump’s response to [the] outpouring of hate on his behalf was never better than insufficient, and often worse. But there was nothing linking Trump to any of the cemetery desecrations around the world in 2015, or the one that hit Philadelphia’s Adath Jeshurun in July of that year. Yet this year, when another Philadelphia Jewish cemetery was hit, and despite the fact that no arrests had been made as of this writing, it was viewed differently—not only because it came after another such incident in Missouri and amid the JCC bomb threats, but because the media framed the attack specifically in [in the context of Trump’s presidency].

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In Dealing with Iran, the U.S. Can Learn from Ronald Reagan

When Ronald Reagan arrived at the White House in 1981, the consensus was that, with regard to the Soviet Union, two responsible policy choices presented themselves: détente, or a return to the Truman-era policy of containment. Reagan, however, insisted that the USSR’s influence could not just be checked but rolled back, and without massive bloodshed. A decade later, the Soviet empire collapsed entirely. In crafting a policy toward the Islamic Republic today, David Ignatius urges the current president to draw on Reagan’s success:

A serious strategy to roll back Iran would begin with Syria. The U.S. would maintain the strong military position it has established east of the Euphrates and enhance its garrison at Tanf and other points in southern Syria. Trump’s public comments suggest, however, that he wants to pull these troops out, the sooner the better. This would all but assure continued Iranian power in Syria.

Iraq is another key pressure point. The victory of militant Iraqi nationalist Moqtada al-Sadr in [last week’s] elections should worry Tehran as much as Washington. Sadr has quietly developed good relations with Saudi Arabia, and his movement may offer the best chance of maintaining an Arab Iraq as opposed to a Persian-dominated one. But again, that’s assuming that Washington is serious about backing the Saudis in checking Iran’s regional ambitions. . . .

The Arabs, [however], want the U.S. (or Israel) to do the fighting this time. That’s a bad idea for America, for many reasons, but the biggest is that there’s no U.S. political support for a war against Iran. . . .

Rolling back an aggressive rival seems impossible, until someone dares to try it.